Being an ISP is not a natural monopoly. This premise is part of the problem, ISPs are being protected from competition when they should not be.
From the Wiki entry the author quotes:
"A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which it is most efficient (involving the lowest long-run average cost) for production to be concentrated in a single firm."
Competition in the ISP market drives costs lower as it forces the companies to become more efficient, and increases the value proposition offered to customers (greater speeds at an equal or lesser price, thanks Google Fiber!). In fact, I think it would be easy to prove comprehensively that ISPs are in no way natural monopolies.
If the author was right, and ISPs were a natural monopoly, then there would be nothing to discuss, the only practical solution would be to install government regulated monopolies in every location across the nation to achieve the absolute lowest cost and consumer price. Google demolished this line of thinking very handily, they showed how instantaneously the government protected telecoms respond to competition in a positive way.
The solution is to make it illegal nationally, via Federal law, for any municipality to ever create or encourage an ISP monopoly; and specifically the exact opposite should occur, competition should be heavily encouraged everywhere. The FCC should be mandated with keeping competition lanes wide open in the ISP market, at all times, across the nation. Standards for how cities and towns handle multiple ISPs for infrastructure should be established. Simply: you shall create no law restricting ISP competition or granting monopoly status, period.
The OP may be using it wrong, but I still think at this point, the last mile network is a natural monopoly. Where I live, city-owned power companies have built single fiber-to-the-building networks that are the open for ISP competition inside the network (I.e. the ISP you pick just delivers the bandwidth/peering). In my view this is the optimal compromise. This wasn't true just a few years ago when DSL and Cable tech was still competitive, but at this point it seems pretty clear that fiber infrastructure isn't going to be beat.
Competition does encourage efficiency, but competing ISPs are starting with lower efficiency because their infrastructure passes so many homes that aren't connected.
Pretty much no one understands how Google Fiber can be profitable at its prices, so unless they open their books or someone replicates that business model I'm not going to call it a solution.
From the Wiki entry the author quotes:
"A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which it is most efficient (involving the lowest long-run average cost) for production to be concentrated in a single firm."
Competition in the ISP market drives costs lower as it forces the companies to become more efficient, and increases the value proposition offered to customers (greater speeds at an equal or lesser price, thanks Google Fiber!). In fact, I think it would be easy to prove comprehensively that ISPs are in no way natural monopolies.
If the author was right, and ISPs were a natural monopoly, then there would be nothing to discuss, the only practical solution would be to install government regulated monopolies in every location across the nation to achieve the absolute lowest cost and consumer price. Google demolished this line of thinking very handily, they showed how instantaneously the government protected telecoms respond to competition in a positive way.
The solution is to make it illegal nationally, via Federal law, for any municipality to ever create or encourage an ISP monopoly; and specifically the exact opposite should occur, competition should be heavily encouraged everywhere. The FCC should be mandated with keeping competition lanes wide open in the ISP market, at all times, across the nation. Standards for how cities and towns handle multiple ISPs for infrastructure should be established. Simply: you shall create no law restricting ISP competition or granting monopoly status, period.